WEBVTT - The Saguaro, Part 3 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:14.680 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:15.960 name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:18.479 And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with Part three 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.880 in our series on the Swaro cactus of the Sonoran Desert. 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:26.240 Now this is part three. This is a series where 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:28.200 this episode will make a lot more sense if you 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:30.920 go back and listen to the previous two episodes first, 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:35.040 but do briefly refresh. In the past couple of episodes, 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:38.839 we talked about the natural anthromorphism of the swarrow, We 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:42.440 talked about how slowly it grows, we talked about its 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:47.879 biological adaptations for surviving in extremely arid conditions, and we 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:51.279 also talked a bit about its history and nomenclature. And 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:54.960 today we're back to finish up the discussion. But before 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:58.400 we get into the meat of today's episode, rob I 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.040 wanted to briefly come back to a question that I 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:05.880 asked you in part two. Since you have recently visited 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:09.080 the Sonoran Desert. You were there among these cacti and 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:10.240 you went hiking, didn't you. 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:12.440 Yes, a couple of times? Yeah, Okay, so. 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:16.440 You're out in sorrow country. They're all around, Yes, yes, yeah, 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:19.839 And I asked if you noticed the cacti making any 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:22.920 noticeable sounds. The main thing I was actually wondering was 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.080 do they creak like trees in a forest when the 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:30.280 wind blows. I couldn't get a very clear answer on that. 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:33.160 Some people kind of say they do, just googling, But 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:36.360 in the time since the last episode, I went looking 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:40.839 up questions about whether sorrows make sounds, and in one 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:44.120 sense the answer is yes, because the main thing I 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:48.160 actually came across was a post from the National Parks 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:51.960 Trust talking about how when the wind blows, if you 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:56.240 stand close to a sorrow, you will hear a hissing 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:59.720 or high whistling sound, which is apparently caused by the 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:03.160 wind into flowing around its ribs and through its spines. 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:05.600 Sot a whistling cactus. 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:11.120 Yeah, yeah, I wish I had thought to listen for this. Namely, 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:13.440 the soundscape that I remember is, you know, more like 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:16.680 the you know, we would hear the wind and the breeze, rather, 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:21.000 you know, the crunch of rocks and pebbles beneath one's feet, 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:24.639 that sort of thing. Bugs, insects, sometimes bees. 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.080 I don't know if this is generally true about the desert, 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:33.360 but just from personal experience, I remember being in the 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:37.320 desert in the American Southwest was one of the quietest 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:40.880 places I ever remember being in nature. So I, you know, 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.640 did some hikes when we were in Big Ben National 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:48.120 Park in Texas, and that's a beautiful desert landscape, but 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:51.720 I remember it being quite striking. There were times when 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:53.720 I would like hike out and you know, the middle 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:57.000 of a trail out there'd be very hot and I 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:00.240 heard just like nothing. It was like more quiet than 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:03.359 I ever remember anything being anywhere outside. 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:07.600 Yeah, there is a stillness and to it, for sure, 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:09.840 And you know, some of the hikes we were doing, 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:12.639 we were not that far from civilization and you could 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:14.520 you could see it. You could see like the housing 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:18.240 developments in the distance and so forth. But even then 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:22.960 there was still something secluded feeling about it. And some 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:25.560 of that might tie into some of the details about 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:27.480 the environment that we'll get to here in a bit. 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:28.560 Oh cool. 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:31.800 So I know, later in today's episode, we wanted to 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:36.480 focus on human uses of the sorrow and its many products, 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:39.480 but before we get to that, I wanted to briefly 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:43.800 take a detour to look into a biological mystery about 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:49.280 the soorro and some atypical soorrow anatomy, and this concerns 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:54.200 what's known as the crystate or crested soorrow. So in 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:57.320 the first episode we talked a lot about the anthropomorphic 0:03:57.400 --> 0:03:59.720 shape of the cactus. Who's got this straight column in 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:03.440 the middle like a central tree trunk. And then when 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:05.840 the in the case of a mature plant, it usually 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:08.920 has arms branching out from the central column and then 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.040 a single point at the top. So the central column 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:14.560 just goes straight up and then it terminates in a 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:20.880 slightly tapered, rounded tip. But on rare occasions, instead of 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:25.599 a central column or a branch terminating in this round, 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:31.200 tapered tip, it spreads out, sometimes wildly at the top, 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:35.040 like a fan or like a peacock's tail. So I've 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:36.920 got some pictures of this for you to look at 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.960 in the outline here, Rob. And so this can happen 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:44.240 to the central column of the cactus, to the trunk, 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:47.840 or to any of the cactus's limbs. And this is 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:52.880 especially interesting when paired with the human anatomical analogy, because 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:56.000 a crested central column can look very much like a 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:59.840 crown or maybe hair or a hat, while a crust 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.520 the limb can look like a waving hand on one 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:06.279 of the arms. So in most of the pictures you 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:08.760 see when you do an image search, this crest is 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:11.800 at the top of the central column or at the 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:16.960 end of a limb. But a cactus doesn't necessarily or 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:20.279 doesn't even usually stop growing when it develops a crest, 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.760 so quite often you will see further columns or limbs 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:26.640 growing well out of the fan formation. 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:30.800 Yeah, it's very impressive looking. It almost kind of takes 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:34.360 on a more of a coral appearance, or I guess 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:37.040 you could compare it to psychedelic art in some respects 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:37.520 as well. 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:44.480 Yeah, a kind of wild, fractal radiating pattern. So interesting 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:49.360 historical fact, the first known photograph of a crested suarrow 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:55.160 comes from an unexpected place, not Arizona, but Chicago in 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:59.640 eighteen ninety three at the World's Columbian Exposition, also known 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.800 as the eighteen ninety three Chicago World's Fair, which we've 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:07.159 done whole episodes about in the past. So this was 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:12.280 a weird, fascinating historical event with lots of strange exhibits, 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:15.520 you know, some very ahead of their time. And others 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:19.320 kind of quaint historical oddities now, but one of the 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:24.440 exhibits here was what was known as an Arizona Territory display. 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:28.440 Oh so, they had shipped a bunch of flora from 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:32.560 Arizona to Chicago for this display, and one of the 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:36.200 cacti that they harvested and brought to Chicago's for the 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:40.080 people to see is a was a rare crested sorrow. 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:41.560 And I've got a picture for you to look at 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:43.440 in the outline here, Rob, So we've got a black 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:47.200 and white photo with this big house with columns and 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.800 then all of this Arizona plant life positioned out front 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:55.680 in the garden, including some regular soarro cactus right just 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:58.680 you know, just regular looking columns. But then one of 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:05.000 them is this beautiful strange fan shape right at the top. 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:10.720 And they I was watching a section about this in 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:14.480 a PBS documentary and it mentions that the cactus, we 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:17.320 don't know what happened to it, but it almost certainly 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:21.840 died from this transportation process, especially once exposed to the 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:23.040 cold weather in Chicago. 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:26.400 So yeah, yeah, I mean just the process of moving 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:29.040 it and trying to replant it as almost certain doom. 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:32.160 Here I was doing a little reading about this yesterday, 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:36.280 about the various protections that are in place for the 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:40.120 soarros in Arizona especially, you know, you know, to keep 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:43.520 people from messing with them, harvesting them, moving them, you know, 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:46.400 unless there is a you know, a certified reason for 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:48.680 it and you have a permit for it, because yeah, 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:51.760 they're just not gonna just can't do this with the 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:52.760 full grown soorrow. 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.080 So yeah, rip to that crested tomorrow. 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:02.520 But I mean you can see they're like roped in place, really. 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:07.240 Shackles around it. Yeah. But fortunately, despite the fact that 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:10.120 they are pretty rare, this was not the only one. 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:12.680 There are you know, hundreds or maybe thousands of these 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:18.400 things out there, and they are actually people who they 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:20.880 make it a hobby. They're like crested toorrow hunters. So 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.560 they go out hiking in touarrow country and try to 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:30.120 find and document the locations of known crested plants. And 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:34.160 we should note that suarrows are not the only species 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:38.080 that occasionally develop crested tips. This is seen in other 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:41.840 columnar cacti as well, but the suarow is the one 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:46.120 where it is the most visually striking and mysterious and 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:49.760 according to all of the sources I was reading, biologists 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:54.720 still do not fully agree on what causes the cresting pattern, 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:59.240 so this is somewhat an unsolved mystery. I was reading 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:03.760 about the hypothesized causes in a few different places, like 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:06.920 the There's a fact page by the National Park Service 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:11.360 that identifies a few leading hypotheses. One is that I 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.000 think this is an older way of thinking, is that 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.480 it's the result of some kind of physical trauma. Like 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:21.480 an older idea was that there were like lightning strikes. 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:25.440 Maybe when lightning hits a cactus, it starts cresting. From 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:27.679 what I can tell, this is maybe not very widely 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:32.600 subscribed to by biologists anymore. Another idea was injury from 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:36.959 frost could cause this. But a different idea is that 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:41.760 it is caused by a genetic mutation. And I was 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:46.920 watching a short documentary on the crested suarows hosted by PBS, 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:51.319 which includes interviews with a sorrow expert named Bill peache 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:57.319 and Peachey explains that the soarow's normal growth. He kind 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:01.400 of compares it to blowing up a party animal balloon, 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.160 so like a long balloon, you know. He says, it's 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.800 a long tube that grows by unfolding at the growth tip, 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:11.640 and as it unfolds here it creates these plats or 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:14.360 ribs that we see along the outside of the cactus, 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:17.960 which hosts the spine clusters. And of course those clusters 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:22.839 can later turn into flowers and fruit can But these 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:27.080 plats can also have developments that turn into branches, you know, 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:31.280 they branch out and turn into limbs. And Peache says, quote, 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:34.880 what's happening is the control mechanism for what causes the 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:38.640 number of pleats is out of control. So instead of 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:43.520 occasionally branching, there are multiple branches on a crest and 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:48.800 it keeps branching until it can't branch anymore. So that's 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.160 his idea of what's going on with the growth pattern. 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:54.160 But what exactly is the underlying cause? 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:54.360 You know? 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:58.439 What goes back one step from that. Peache argues that 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:02.400 the reason the fleet growth goes out of control is 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:06.439 due to a hormonal malfunction. So he thinks that the 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.960 growth batter, the original growth pattern is determined by like 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:14.920 a hormonal balance, and sometimes that hormonal control malfunctions. And 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:19.000 the reason he cites for thinking this is that the 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:23.360 out of control crested growth is not necessarily permanent. Once 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:27.080 it starts, it can turn on and off, and he 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:31.079 points as evidence of this, He points to examples of 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:35.880 cacti where you get a cresting pattern start and then 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.040 for some reason it stops, and then there is a 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.640 normal stem or branch growth coming out of the crest 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.560 which just continues to grow normally after that. And Rob, 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:48.080 I've got a picture you can look at in the 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:54.360 outline here. Yeah, it's a mature saro with some branches 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:56.240 down below, and then up at the top there is 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.679 a crested section and then out of the crest are 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:06.320 actually branching to what looked like normal branches or central trunks. 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:06.959 Yeah. 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:11.480 Yeah, so that's Peachey's theory. But again, from what I 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:16.439 can tell, experts still do not fully agree on the explanation. 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.840 So there remains something of a mystery about the crests. 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:23.280 But one thing that we do know is it's not 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.200 a fatal condition. So you know, you might think a 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.480 cactus like, oh, it's doing something very rare and strange 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:33.200 that's causing alterations of its growth. You might think, well, 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:36.400 this cactus is doomed. I mean, I guess every plant 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:40.280 will die eventually, But a cactus with crested growth patterns 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.160 can go on living for a long time and it 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:46.520 appears to be otherwise healthy. It can produce flowers and 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:47.800 fruit and go on growing. 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:51.000 Yeah, they just kind of look like the zombies in 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:51.800 the Last of Us. 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:58.280 Yes, yeah, yeah, the clickers. Yeah yeah, crest on the head. Now, 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:02.040 there's one more thing I wanted to mention. That was 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:04.560 you actually gave me the idea to look into this, 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:10.320 rob It's the so called soworrow boot. If you see 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.640 one of these things on its own, you might wonder 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:16.040 how does this come from a cactus. You might not 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:20.600 understand how it fits into cactus biology because it looks 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:27.640 often like a strange wooden or barkie picture or jug. Yeah, 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:33.080 but what's cool is that these structures are actually formed 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:39.000 inside the sorrow as a result of excavation by birds. 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:43.160 So they are a defense mechanism that forms in reaction 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:47.800 to tissue trauma that later can take on lives of 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:48.319 their own. 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:51.480 And this is definitely something that you see a lot 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:53.840 when you walk among the soaro as you see this 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:57.560 tissue damage from and you see actual sites of birds' 0:13:57.640 --> 0:13:59.720 nests in the cactus yeah. Yeah. 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:03.720 The way this works is many birds make nests in 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.920 the flesh of the swarow, for example, the HeLa woodpecker 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:10.600 or the gilded flicker. These birds will pick a spot 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.319 high up on the trunk or on a branch, and 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.600 they use their beaks to dig out a hollow in 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:19.560 the plant's flesh. So the souarro is tough, but these 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.880 birds they've got specialized tough beaks and they dig into 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.880 the flesh and make a hole. And coming back to 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:30.120 the complexity of the you know, the kind of many 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.680 faceted help and harm relationships in the desert that we 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:37.200 talked about last time. That was in the context of 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:41.440 suarrows and their nurse plants. I was reading in the 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:43.880 Yetman at All book that we've talked about in the 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:47.080 past couple of episodes. In fact, we should give the 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:49.960 full citation again right now. This is the book The 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:54.760 Soorro Cactus, a Natural History by David Yetman, Alberto Berquez, 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:58.720 Kevin Holteen, and Michael Sanderson from the University of Arizona Press, 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.880 twenty twenty. But in this book, the authors have a 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:06.880 section about the soorrow boot and they're talking about the 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:10.800 relationships between these birds that peck holes in the side 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.680 of the cactus and the cactus itself, and they say, actually, 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:20.240 the birds might simultaneously help and harm the cactus. So 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:22.600 the harm is pretty easy to understand. They're digging a 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:25.400 hole in your flesh. But the book points out they 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:29.440 may serve as minor pollinators for the cactus flowers and 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:34.000 as vectors for dispersing the fruit seeds. And the authors 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:38.000 also mention that the birds may protect the sooro in 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:42.080 a way by eating larva from diseased plant tissue near 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:42.560 the nest. 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:43.800 Okay. 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:48.800 However, the plant responds to this attack on its tissue 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:51.800 by the birds, so it can't stop the bird from 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:54.920 digging a hole in its side, but it reacts to 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:59.640 a hole being dug by forming this dense, hard layer 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:04.240 of what the authors call callous or scar tissue around 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:06.920 the inside surface of the cavity. 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:09.440 So it's like, you know, the bird digs a. 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:11.760 Hole in the cactus, and then all around the inner 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:14.760 skin of that hole, the cactus is like, I'm going 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:18.800 to make tough tissue now, you know. So this hard 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:23.160 or tough inner layer of woody flesh remains after the 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:28.000 bird leaves, and then it may be subsequently repurposed by 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:31.280 other wildlife, like another bird comes along, like an owl 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:35.320 or a kestrel and makes a nest in this vacated 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:40.680 sawarow boot. But then after the cactus itself dies, this 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:44.280 tough inner cavity remains as a kind of bark like 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:47.440 jug or bowl. And this is this is what we 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.960 end up calling the cactus boot. So the barkie boot 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:55.320 stays even after the decomposition of the cactus. And in fact, 0:16:55.440 --> 0:17:00.240 historically these boots have been repurposed by humans. So I 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:02.320 was reading about this in a few sources, but the 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:08.080 Arizona Sonora Desert Museum mentions that the thana Authum, the Epima, 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:12.040 and the Seri people all have traditions of repurposing the 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:14.439 salvaged boots as water containers. 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:17.600 Yeah, not as boots, to be clear, but we call 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:20.400 them boots. I don't think anybody's wearing these on their feet, 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:25.600 but yeah, it's like it becomes a natural water reservoir. 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:30.640 By the way, the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, located near Tucson, 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.240 is excellent. I've been there a couple of times. It 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:37.200 is a museum, but you might think of it more 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:40.080 as a botanical garden in a way like it's mostly 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:44.119 outdoors and you're walking among the different plants. There's some 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:48.719 animal demonstrations as well. You can see some halina. It's 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:50.800 a wonderful place, So I reckon it's another place I 0:17:50.840 --> 0:18:04.440 recommend if you're visiting the Tucson area, the Holy Heavily. Yeah, 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:09.000 all right, well let's continue with this discussion of human 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:13.760 beings and the soaro. So well, you know, obviously relatively 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:16.480 new classification to Western science. This we discussed in the 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:20.480 first episode, but the native peoples of the Sonoran Desert 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:25.879 obviously knew about the soaro for millennia, and they had 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:29.320 different names for it. So the thana Apham called it 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:35.000 the hashan or hassan, and they derive multiple resources from 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:39.679 the cactus. We'll discuss some of these, but food, drink, lumber, tools, 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:44.040 and shade. The coastal Sonoran people called the Seri call 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:49.040 it the Mohepe, and the southern Sonoran Maos and Yaquis 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:53.040 people called it the Sagwo. I may be mispronouncing this, 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:56.240 but it's sag u o and this would be where 0:18:56.280 --> 0:19:01.639 we get sa g u a r o soar from. 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:05.640 So this would this seems to be where we get 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:10.679 the main name for this organism. Now, colonial recognition of 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:14.160 the suarro was ultimately sketchy and limited. We got into 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:17.800 that a little bit. The authors of these Soarro cactus 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:20.440 point out that for a long time the Sonoran Desert 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:24.160 was just difficult country for the Spanish. He was far 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:28.240 from Mexico City, and people who ventured here generally encountered 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:31.639 less than friendly receptions from native people's And so the 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:36.160 sowaro is often briefly described it's looped in with other cacti. 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:40.199 And there were plenty of Spanish botanists that were interested 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.240 in the cacti of the Americas, but their work tended 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:46.639 to focus on species outside of this far flung and 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:52.280 difficult country. Now, coming back to the thana Aphem, there, 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:54.960 of course natives of the Sonoran Desert, and they occupied 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:59.879 these lands when Europeans first ventured there. They reside here still, 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:04.960 though their lands in society were artificially divided by colonial influences. 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:08.280 So I'm going to be referring to an older work 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:11.440 of scholarship, and I may fall into past tense a 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.080 little bit talking about some of these practices, but I 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.120 do want to stress at the top here that we're 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:18.679 discussing the people who are still very much around and 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:21.919 still very very active in the world, so they do 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:25.600 not exist in the past tense. So obviously they have 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:28.600 a lot of experience with the Suaro and it has 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:32.440 an important place in their culture. That University of Arizona 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:37.600 book we've been referencing includes a paper titled the Annual 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:42.880 Soarro Harvest and Crop Cycle of the Papago with reference 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:46.479 to Ecology and Symbolism, and this was by Frank S. 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:52.400 Cross White, which David Yetman explains. The title here uses 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:57.560 a now outdated Spanish name for the thana Athham people. 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:03.199 They moved away from this title in a firmer sense 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.080 about the same time that the paper came out, or 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:08.679 maybe a little bit after, so it's a nineteen eighty paper, 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:13.280 but the name issue aside, is still rather informative and 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:17.119 is considered like a foundational work. So cross White wrote 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:20.880 that the thana Apham were very connected with the environment, 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:25.280 and their charting and perception of time is very much 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:28.040 based and is in tune with the ebb and flow 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:31.080 of the natural world, as you might expect, and as 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:34.879 far as the sowarrow is concerned for them. June is 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:39.160 soorrow harvest month, the time during which they'd harvest, process, 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:43.600 and eat the fruit of this mighty cactus. May is 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:47.960 the month when soarrow's seeds are turning black in the 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:52.240 developing fruit, the painful month that still invokes optimism for 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:56.240 the coming harvest, and as early as March, rituals are 0:21:56.240 --> 0:22:00.640 performed and were performed to ensure a good harvest to follow. 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:05.080 Some of these rituals involved the grinding of soorrow seeds 0:22:05.119 --> 0:22:08.120 and placing the results in a basket with quote four 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:12.200 pieces of rib from a soaro skeleton, one at each 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:15.760 cardinal point. And then they're singing. There's divination and there 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:19.000 is a consumption of the seeds. And it's here that 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:23.520 he connects this with He points out that he's uncertain 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:27.399 if the basket was buried in this ritual, but he 0:22:27.520 --> 0:22:33.520 connects it possibly to a particular resurrection legend concerning the 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:37.760 sowarro that I found quite beautiful and ties in with 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:43.360 someone like the deeper mythic anthropomorphism involved with the soarro. 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:48.439 So basically the story goes as follows. In this legend, 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:52.760 you have a child and this child somehow sinks into 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:54.880 the ground. I don't know, they're like pulled into the ground, 0:22:54.920 --> 0:22:57.840 they fall into the ground, but at any rate, now 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:02.440 they are underground. The child's is concerned, and she turns 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:06.359 to the trickster coyote to help dig the child out. 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:11.000 She's like, coyote, can come help me dig my child out. Coyote, 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:15.800 of course, is a trickster spirit or deity pops up 0:23:15.800 --> 0:23:20.480 in a number of different indigenous belief systems. So okay, 0:23:20.840 --> 0:23:25.000 Coyote agrees to help, but coyote secretly eats the child 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:29.960 during the rescue operation and then gives the remaining bones 0:23:30.160 --> 0:23:33.280 to the child's mother and just tells her, Hey, someone 0:23:33.359 --> 0:23:36.080 must have eaten your son. This is all I could find. 0:23:36.880 --> 0:23:39.800 The mother is, of course heartbroken by this, and she 0:23:39.960 --> 0:23:43.000 asks coyote to bury the bones for her, and he 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:47.959 does so, and from that burial spot the first sorrow arises. 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:53.359 Interesting, so this creates some deep essential connection between humankind 0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:56.000 and the sorrows, like the human being is at the 0:23:56.119 --> 0:23:57.719 roots of the cactus. 0:23:58.080 --> 0:24:01.119 Yeah, yeah, exactly, and so so this seems to like 0:24:01.200 --> 0:24:04.640 tie in rather deeply for the fauna awthhum people, where 0:24:06.359 --> 0:24:10.560 the sonarrows are connected to human ancestors there's a human 0:24:10.640 --> 0:24:15.320 heritage at play, like in a sense they are people 0:24:15.960 --> 0:24:18.520 or there is a connection to us. I don't know, 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:21.600 It's one of those things that you know, English language 0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:23.480 may be struggles to put it exactly in the right 0:24:23.520 --> 0:24:26.959 words that would be accurate. But I was reading that 0:24:27.080 --> 0:24:30.040 in I believe twenty twenty one, the Fauna Awpham Nation 0:24:30.280 --> 0:24:35.640 passed a resolution to grant soarro's legal personhood. And also 0:24:35.920 --> 0:24:39.720 just there's a reminder, Arizona, under state law has it 0:24:39.880 --> 0:24:43.240 illegal to cut down, damage, or move a soarrow cactus 0:24:43.280 --> 0:24:47.000 without a permit, So they enjoy protection on multiple fronts 0:24:48.880 --> 0:24:51.159 within the region of what is now Arizona. 0:24:51.600 --> 0:24:54.520 Yeah, yet yet another reason not to go into the 0:24:54.520 --> 0:24:57.160 desert shooting them, as we dissessed in part one. 0:24:57.280 --> 0:24:59.480 Absolutely, yeah, I mean I thought back on that story too, 0:24:59.560 --> 0:25:03.720 Like when you consider the idea that the native inhabitants 0:25:03.720 --> 0:25:07.760 of this area saw these cacti as being you know, 0:25:07.840 --> 0:25:11.359